


Children should be useful

by Prim_the_Amazing



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Aphrodisiacs, Dubious Consent, M/M, Manipulation, virens a bitch and i love it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-19 00:33:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16129898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: Soren grows up fit as a skilled swordsman and as beautiful as his mother, striking dark brows and eyes and soft blond hair, a strong jaw and broad shoulders, trim waist and decently tall, muscular. Viren mentally puts Soren down as being potentially useful in a new way in addition to his skill with the sword.





	Children should be useful

Children should be useful. They are loyal. They can be raised to be skilled. They contribute. They are assets. Allies, inherently subordinate and tied to you. Perfect. 

Viren doesn’t try and have more than two, however. He marries a bit dim and gullible but stupendously rich and beautiful woman, and then subtly gets rid of her after he’s certain that his youngest at least has the potential to learn and practice magic. Nothing is better for creating ‘natural causes’ than dark magic. 

A girl and a boy. A mage, and a spare he can use on something else. It’s good. Not so many children that he’ll lose control or sight of one of them and they’ll turn against him or become more of a burden than an asset, but enough that he has some choice in how to utilize them. 

Claudia takes to dark magic like a fish to water, gleefully claiming her birthright. Soren clearly fears it, but that doesn’t matter; he never had a chance at mastering it anyways, so how he feels about it is irrelevant. 

He focuses on tutoring Claudia to be the best, most useful mage she can be, but in the back of his mind he puzzles over how to make Soren useful as well. Unfortunately, the children seems to both take more after their mother than him, intelligence wise. It makes them easy to steer, but he can’t trust either of their judgement, sending them somewhere far off to protect and subtly work for his goals. 

Can’t do magic, can’t control someone without them noticing it. What else is there? 

And then Soren beats the living hell out of someone who’d made fun of Claudia when she didn’t have the spell ingredients to retaliate. He scolds him, punishes him-- but internally, his mental gears are turning. Of course. A physical aptitude towards violence. No wonder it hadn’t occurred to him, brawn never having been his domain. 

“Soren,” he had said. His son had red rimmed eyes and tear tracks on his face, a stuffy nose. His father being cross with him was clearly devastating. That was good. It indicated that he deeply valued Viren’s opinion of him. “As punishment, you’re going to start taking sword lessons. Every. Single. Day.” 

Soren blinked up at him. Clearly, this punishment was not as harsh as he’d been fearing. Promising. “Yes, dad.” 

He gives his son a pat on the shoulder, and he brightens a little at this gesture.  _ Maybe he isn’t so mad at me after all, _ he clearly thinks. His son is an open book. Honestly, just like his mother. 

Viren then goes to tell Harrow and Sairai all about it. Of course, they already knew that Soren had gotten into a fight, but he supplies them with the details. 

“It was sweet of him to protect his sister,” Sairai says. Viren can tell that she wishes Soren wasn’t being punished at all. She’s always been a fan of escalation, and from her point of view the defeated child started and thus deserved it. 

“Yes, but I can’t just encourage this kind of behavior either,” he says mournfully. He even means it. Ruling with fear is all well and good, but that isn’t their position. They’re not the people in charge, they’re the close family friends. Reputation matters. Subtlety matters. If Soren had wanted vicious revenge on the boy, then he shouldn’t have done it so violently and in full view of absolutely everyone. It’s a good thing that he’s just a child. Things like this are to be expected from kids. 

Harrow nods understandingly, and Viren takes a sip of his wine to hide his smirk. The king’s approval matters more than the queen’s. Every time Harrow agrees with him, there’s a small surge of victory in his stomach, a sense of entrenching his position as the trusted best friend even more. 

“How  _ will  _ you be punishing him?” Sairai asks, a fellow parents nosy curiosity. 

“He will be learning how to use the sword,” he says. 

Sairai’s eyebrows raise along with the corners of her mouth. “That doesn’t sound like much of a punishment to me.” 

Harrow chuckles. “You may be just a touch biased, dear.” Sairai’s enthusiasm for swordsmanship is notorious. 

“Well, just between the three of us, I might not exactly be all that mad at Soren either. He  _ was _ defending family, after all.” 

Sairai grins at him conspiratorially. Victory surges in his stomach again. He has managed to gain approval from both Sairai  _ and _ Harrow even though they have opposing views on the matter. It’s over a small thing, but still. The king’s approval may matter more than the queen’s, but it’s even better to have both. 

“Have a tutor in mind?” Harrow asks. 

Viren takes every opportunity to further cement his position as the man loyal and loved enough to stand at the king’s side during his royal portrait. Children are assets. Soren is a spare, Claudia having taken the position as the mage apprentice. The queen’s approval is the king’s by proxy. Sairai is notorious for her love of swordsmanship. 

Viren’s mind moves quickly, and before he’s even come to the conclusion of all of these facts, he’s opening his mouth to say, “Well, I was actually hoping that  _ Sairai _ here would be willing to teach him.” 

As he says it, he realizes how brilliant the idea is. Not only would Soren be taught by the most skilled and respected swordsman around which would make him a more skilled and useful asset later, but he would be crafting a close bond with the queen herself, which would count as a close bond for Viren by proxy. The more ties he has to the royal family, the better. 

“I’ve never taught before,” Sairai says, but there’s an intrigued look to her eyes. He as good as already has her. 

“Every great teacher has to start somewhere,” he says, raising his goblet to her before he takes a drink. 

He watches the word _ great _ sink into her. Sairai is one of the greatest warriors he’s ever met, and something like that doesn’t happen by accident or happenstance. She is driven, and always eager to be the best at what she tries her hand at. 

“He’ll have to try and do his best,” she says slowly. 

“Of course,” he says. He can arrange it. Soren is eager for his father’s approval, something that he’s carefully nurtured and encouraged. A few well placed comments will assure that Soren will put his all into his training. 

“Then I think you have a deal, Viren,” Sairai says, and they shake on it. She squeezes too hard, as usual. 

 

Some years later, Sairai dies. It changes a great deal of things, especially since so much of his status and influence relies on Harrow, who is impacted by this more than anyone. Viren adjusts and takes as much advantage as he can. He is the comforting friend, the sympathetic confidante, building up good will for when Harrow recovers later. He even rules for a few days with Harrow’s permission, and he makes as many changes as he can without actually looking like he’s taking advantage. It’s more seeding for future plans to possibly take fruit. One should never stop striving for more power and security, no matter how much they already have. 

He barely even thinks about how Soren had been tutored by Sairai until he sees how devastated his son is. It was one of his smaller schemes, just idly making his child be as useful as possible before he was grown and would be expected to contribute more. It’s unfortunate, about Sairai. Viren had put in all of that work to be her friend, after all. He’d made her adore Soren. At least he was very skilled in swordsmanship by now and had an unshakeable passion for improving at it, even if Viren had lost that extra bond to the royal family through him. 

It hadn’t occurred to him that Soren would adore her right back, even though it seems so obvious now that he thinks about it, now that he hears Soren’s muffled cries through his bedroom door. 

He hadn’t even noticed until now. He’s been busy with Harrow, with getting as much as he can out of this narrow window of time as everyone is distracted by their grief and shock. Harrow is well enough to rule again now, even if sorrow covers him like a cloak. Soren is still weeping. Viren hasn’t been there for him like he’s been for Harrow, because it hadn’t been a useful use of his time. He doesn’t regret it. Time heals all wounds, and Soren is an assured ally, while Harrow is the  _ king.  _

There is something in him that breaks a little at the noise, though. It’s so pitiful. That’s his  _ son.  _ His foolish, eager son, skilled at the sword and nothing else, so desperate to please him. 

Viren opens the door without knocking and walks over to his son’s bed. 

“Dad,” Soren gasps and sits up, looks away and rubs at his face, his eyes. He doesn’t cry as shamelessly any longer. He’s growing. 

“Soren,” he says. “I’ve been so busy. I’m sorry. I know the two of you were close.” 

Soren trembles, hunches over. His words are clearly pushing him back over the edge. Viren recalculates his approach. This isn’t a particularly high stakes interaction, but he still wants to succeed. He always wants to succeed. What does he know about Soren? He’s never paid as close attention to him as he has more useful people in his life, but he’s still his son, and Viren has always made a habit of keeping track of people's likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams and goals, fears and prejudices, habits and tendencies. It’s useful information to have. 

Soren eats when he’s upset, he recalls. 

“Do you want for me to make you some chocolate chip pancakes?” he asks. He doesn’t tend to cook, but he can. It’s just like making a potion; you just have to follow the recipe to the letter. 

Soren sniffles, looks stunned. “Y--yeah,” he says. 

“Then let’s go do that, then,” he says, and they do. 

Maintaining relationships is important. Keeping up his reputation is important. His image. His assets. 

Viren confirms that he can still make some damn good pancakes. 

 

Soren is less useful after that. He trains. He’s the best in his age group, and a few years above that to boot. But that’s just cultivating himself for the future. Right now and right here in the present he doesn’t really do much for Viren. It’s not a disaster, but it’s not ideal either. Viren is Harrow’s shoulder to cry on, continues educating Claudia in dark magic, and let’s the problem simmer in the back of his mind for a long while. 

Soren grows up fit as a skilled swordsman and as beautiful as his mother, striking dark brows and eyes and soft blond hair, a strong jaw and broad shoulders, trim waist and decently tall, muscular. Viren mentally puts Soren down as being potentially useful in a new way in addition to his skill with the sword. 

Enough time passes that Harrow stops needing to cry on Viren’s shoulder. Something unforeseen happens; without Sairai around, always eager to solve things with her sword, always pushing Harrow to be more aggressive in the war, Harrow’s more peaceful and diplomatic nature starts overtaking him again. Without Sairai there to agree with Viren’s carefully phrased suggestions and outnumber Harrow with him, they start disagreeing more, and Viren starts losing more arguments. They’re growing more distant. 

This is  _ unacceptable.  _

He tries everything he can think of, and none of it works. Harrow is too used to him. Harrow is too determined. Viren is going to be abandoned, he can tell. 

And then he catches Soren looking at Harrow a certain way, and his mind is already pouncing at it to make a plan in his advantage before it even sinks in. 

Soren has always been an open book to him, and it’s clear as day that he is attracted to Harrow. Of course he is. What person who is capable of being attracted to men wouldn’t be? He’s handsome and dignified and the _ king.  _ Half the kingdom has a crush on Harrow, most likely. 

How can he use this?

“Remember when Sairai used to teach Soren the sword?” he says. 

“I do,” Harrow says. 

“You’re not unskilled with the sword either, are you?” he says.  

“I was nothing in comparison to Sairai,” he says, wistfulness creeping into his voice. Viren is minutely relieved at emotion finally showing on his face. Emotion means investment, distraction, footholds. Something he can work with. 

“That’s holding yourself to quite a standard,” he says playfully. “I’m sure that you’re better than Soren, at least. He may be a prodigy, but you’ve held a sword for longer than his entire lifetime.” He’s not actually entirely sure about Harrow’s superiority. Soren isn’t just a prodigy, he’s a  _ genius. _ What a strange thing to think, but it’s true. Harrow doesn’t know that, though. Soren was always Sairai’s pet project, not his. 

“I’m the king,” Harrow says along with an expression that was a bit too light to be called forbidding. It felt friendly. “I’m afraid that I don’t have time to tutor your son, Viren.” 

“He can mostly tutor himself at this point,” he says, and it almost comes out as a brag. Claudia’s aptitude with dark magic is something that he feels far more pride over, but Soren really is far more exceptional than most other people’s children. Harrow’s, for example. Ezran seems to do nothing but run around and cause trouble and talk at animals like they’ll reply, and Callum can only  _ draw, _ which is a singularly useless talent for a prince. A  _ step  _ prince. “But it could be fun to spar with him every now and then, yes? Sairai spoke with satisfaction of his skill, and I don’t think that you want to grow rusty without your regular sparring partner around to keep you sharp.” 

Said missing sparring partner being Sairai. She would be disappointed with Harrow if he let himself grow slow and soft, if she were here. She’d never let it happen in the first place if she were here, in fact. 

Bringing up Sairai so many times in a short span of time was a risk, but as a considering expression slides onto Harrow’s face he knows that it was a well placed one. 

“Sparring with any other of your subjects will most assuredly lead to them just holding back against you, Harrow,” he says. “It takes guts to try your best to defeat your own king. But I can tell you for a certainty that if I tell Soren not to hold back, he won’t.” 

Perhaps an exaggeration. Soren is a royal guard, proudly the youngest one in history, and the royal guards get loyalty to the crown thoroughly drilled into them during training. Viren hadn’t done anything to dissuade it. He can’t ever imagine Harrow not being his ally, after all; he’s too fully entrenched by now. But he thinks he can persuade Soren to at least be rough enough to be impressive. All he has to do is not drive Harrow through with his sword, after all. 

“Alright, alright,” Harrow says. “You’ve convinced me.” 

 

When Viren informs Soren that he’ll be sparring with the king, he  _ blushes.  _

“Make sure that he doesn’t eat so much that he can’t move,” he murmurs into Claudia’s ear, watching him wolf down yet another jelly tart. 

She giggles and nods, and then walks over to Soren and quickly starts shoving jelly tarts into her own mouth. Soren makes indignant full mouthed noises as Claudia works to decimate his supplies. 

He supposes that that works. 

 

He wants to be there, for the sparring match. He wants to hover, micromanage, make sure that it goes well, smooth things along. But that would make it feel less intimate, a watched thing that wasn’t just shared between the two of them. They’d focus on Viren, the one they’re both already close to, instead of each other. That’s not how you build a bond. That’s not how you guarantee a repeat performance. 

He lets Soren go alone, and wishes that dark magic allowed for a good luck spell. 

 

When Soren comes back from his sparring match his jaw is bruised and Harrow’s eyes linger on him. 

“Your son  _ is  _ very skilled,” he says approvingly. 

“He is.” He smiles and doesn’t remind Harrow of Sairai’s existence by mentioning her. 

Harrow’s gaze on Soren’s retreating back is  _ low.  _

 

Soren is invited by the king to spar with him again. And again. Again. Again. 

“How was it?” Viren innocently asks. 

“The king is very, um.” Soren’s face is steadily flushing pink. “Very, uhhhh.” 

“Fit?” he suggest. 

Soren’s face goes pinker. He nods. 

“That’s nice,” he says, and watches Soren scurry off to his room to no doubt take care of business. (Business being the tenting in his pants he’d been trying to subtly hide.) 

Harrow is the one who keeps inviting Soren back to these matches, of course. Soren doesn’t have the authority to drag Harrow into the practice ring like Sairai had. 

Viren knows how those practice matches between the two of them used to end. They’d leave behind  _ detritus. _ Broken furniture. Ripped clothes. Bruises that looked suspiciously like love bites on their necks. 

He considers Soren and Harrow with a slowly stirring excitement. He can tell that they haven’t actually done anything yet. Soren is an open book and Harrow is honorable and respectable. He would know if something had happened. He would be able to tell. But oh, if it  _ did _ happen…

Well, he’d have many new opportunities, for starters. Dozens upon hundreds of new possibilities and avenues. 

He just had to push them that last little bit over the edge. They’d never notice, or suspect. They were both too trusting for that. 

 

Viren makes a potion. Just smelling it makes him think of Harrow without a shirt, Sairai winning yet another arm wrestling competition against a man twice her size, hazy long ago memories of laying with his beautiful wife. It’s heady. It’s  _ perfect _ . 

He waits until a day he knows that Harrow and Soren will be sparring later in the day, and puts just a touch of into Harrow’s drink while Ezran is causing a distracting commotion. There is a poison taster, of course, but this is a slow acting sweet thing. Even when the effects hit the poison taster later, it will be easy to excuse the effects as just an impulse of the body. Not something you talked about to people. No one will find out. 

Harrow drinks it and doesn’t even frown at his goblet afterwards. Good. 

After some consideration, he puts some in Soren’s drink as well. It may very well be overkill, but it can’t hurt. All Soren needs to put his mouth on his king’s cock is permission, an order, but if the potion won’t be enough to persuade Harrow to make that order in the first place, then maybe Soren begging for him to do so will. Harrow is so  _ kind,  _ after all. 

He leaves Soren and Harrow to sparr all alone, as usual. The potion will take effect as their blood starts rushing with the activity of sword clanging against sword. The heat will be easy to mistake and ignore at first. The sweat. The racing heartbeat. 

Viren gives them twenty minutes before he walks in to tell Soren about something vague and family related. 

The tableau he walks in on couldn’t have been more perfect if he’d arranged it by hand himself. Soren, on his hands and knees, pants pulled down his thighs. Harrow, inside of him, thrusting. One hand in his blond hair, pulling it back, making his back arc tantalizingly. 

“Highness,” Soren gasps. 

“Yes,” Harrow grunts. 

They haven’t even noticed him yet. The potion must be  _ very _ good. 

“So good for me,” Harrow says, pounding into him. Soren moans. “Good guard, good-- good boy.” 

“Please,” Soren says brokenly, “Highness, just wanna, wanna serve you.” 

“You’re serving excellently,” Harrow purrs, and leans down to kiss him on the shoulder. Soren makes a  _ noise.  _

He really does crave approval, huh. That may be Viren’s fault. All of this is Viren’s fault, really. 

He’s brilliant like that. 

He waits until Harrow spends himself inside of Soren, and then takes his time arranging his expression to be just the right amount of horrified, shocked, and betrayed, and then he staggers back, letting his cane clatter to the floor like he’s just walked in. Their heads whip over to him. 

_ “Harrow,” _ he says. “How could you.”

 

There is a lot, after that. Harrow covering Soren, dressing himself. Apologizing, explaining, fumbling. Viren is heartbroken the entire time. This is what he’s been doing with his son every time they’ve been sparring together? How could he take advantage of him so? He’s  _ twice _ his _ age. _ How is Soren going to be married now? How can anyone proper ever want him again? What will he  _ do? _

Viren doesn’t really pay attention to Soren. Harrow is what matters right now. He must have slinked out at some point. 

“I’m so sorry, Viren,” Harrow says. “I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to make it up to you.” 

Viren bites his tongue harshly so he doesn’t smile. 

He has a few ideas. 

 

Children should be useful. Soren has done a good job. He goes back to focusing on Claudia and Harrow, and keeps him in the back of his mind for when another opportunity to use him may come up. Soren is a good son and stays out of trouble. And if he cries, then he's learned how to cry quietly by now. 


End file.
